Friday, 25 March 2016

Frank Buckland, the famous Natural Historian, described a
merman that had been exhibited in London [1] as having been made by fusing the
torso of a monkey to the body of a fish, most likely a hake, with some
additions to add effect. Exhibits of mermen and mermaids were popular in the
Nineteenth Century, but they were always advertised more enthusiastically than
their reality was worth. They were, of necessity, shrivelled and dry and quite different
to the many exotic living creatures that could be viewed in Zoological Gardens
and Aquaria and which were brought back from expeditions to many parts of the
World, such a feature of the time.

After describing the merman and a mermaid, Buckland
introduces us to another preserved creature, the Nondescript (shown above and
not to be confused with the object of the same name created by Charles Waterton
[2]). Buckland describes "his" Nondescript in Curiosities of Natural History (the creature was part of the zoological
collection he kept in his home) [3]:

The Nondescript is about as big as
a baby three months old, and as a crusty bachelor friend said, "really
very much like one."

He has wings on the top of his
shoulder like the old army aigulettes, and there are claws on the tips and on
the extreme ends of each wing: these wings are so artfully contrived that one
would believe they could be opened out and unfurled like a bat's wing at any
moment the creature that carried it wished to take a fly a either for business
or amusement.

The arms are amazingly human-like,
and look as though the dried skin had shrunk fast on to the bone; the legs also
represent a similar appearance. The hands and feet are demon-like, and of a
long, scraggy, merciless appearance, and each finger and toe is armed with a formidable-looking
claw. The ribs project frightfully, as though the nondescript had lately been
living for some time à la malcontent. The head is
about as big as a very large apple. The ears project outwards and downwards,
like those of an African elephant. The face is wrinkled and deformed; the nose
like a pig’s snout; the eyes like those of a codfish; the teeth exactly the
same as those in the mermaid.. – double rows in each jaw, with protruding fangs
in front; and surmounting this hideous countenance, a rough shock of
fine-wool-like hair..

From this description, and from the illustration, it is difficult
to imagine that anyone could believe that this had been a living
creature. The appearance of the Nondescript mirrored that of illustrations
of devils, compounded by the addition of wings that were very similar
to those of bats, animals that have an unfortunate, and undeserved, reputation
[4]. Anyone with biological knowledge would be immediately suspicious on seeing
that wings and arms were both present, as we know that the latter developed
from, and replaced, the ancestral fore-limbs in both bats and birds. Those dedicated to
the many images of angels (that have both wings and arms) would maybe have been
less worried by this detail and the Nondescript was clearly designed to
represent an "evil angel".

After Frank Buckland had acquired the Nondescript to add to
his collection, he was able to examine it in more detail and this is what he
found [3]:

Everybody said that there must be
bones in the arms and the legs and ribs. I soon tested this with a surgical
exploring needle [Buckland was trained as a surgeon], but found no bone, or
anything like a bone, but simply soft wood, probably cedar. I made several
incisions in the Nondescript’s body, and found that the main portion of his
composition was (like the legs) a light wood. The skin, as well as the wings,
are made of a species of papier-mâché,
most artfully put on in wrinkles, and admirably coloured and shaded to give the
appearance of the dried body of some creature that had once existed either on
land or sea – had been slain – and then preserved as a curiosity.

As Buckland's Nondescript was one of many, most probably produced
in Japan, the wings could be those of an oriental fruit bat and he must have
considered, and dismissed, that possibility. As an army officer, Buckland must also have been intrigued by the insertion
of the wings “like old army aigulettes” (see an image of these accessories
below) and how this presents challenges to understanding how they might have
been used in flight. It’s the same problem for anyone trying to understand how
angels flap their wings, of course [5].

Belief in the Nondescript,
comes from our ability to suspend a rational approach. In a fairground, with poor
lighting and with a barker to stress the importance of the creature, one can
easily see how people could be taken in and believe the Nondescript to have
been a real creature. A cynic might suggest that religion has its equivalent of
barkers in getting us to believe in images of angels, although there are no
remains of angels for us to examine. That is not to say that these heavenly beings cannot
exist; rather that they are supernatural and yet have been shown as physical
beings in paintings and sculpture. Is it fair to make that comparison?

Thursday, 17 March 2016

While visiting the Library of Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, I
found a copy of Hugh Miller's Foot-prints
of the Creator: or the Asterolepis of Stromness and wondered whether the
Fox Talbot family had been enthusiastic readers of the book [1]. Last week, I
was at Oxburgh Hall, the ancestral home of the Roman Catholic Bedingfield
family, famous for its well-preserved Priest's Hole, into which the brave can
still clamber. This hidden room was to protect Roman Catholic clerics after the
Reformation, a time when they were hunted and persecuted. The house and park
are wonderful places to visit [2] and I followed my usual habit of perusing the
spines of the volumes in the Library: one of the books that stood out was a
copy of Jean-Henri Fabre's Social Life in
the Insect World.

Fabre, who lived from 1823 to 1915, was an enthusiastic
entomologist and had the ability to engage readers with his descriptions of
insects and their behaviour, often amplified by the results of experiments that
he conducted. Here is an example from Social
Life in the Insect World where he discusses his observations on the Oak
Eggar Moth Lasiocampa quercus (see
above). The text is translated from the French and this is what members of the
Bedingfield family would have read [3]:

One afternoon, while trying to
determine whether sight plays any part in the search for the female once the males
had entered the room, I placed the female in a bell-glass and gave her a
slender twig of oak with withered leaves as a support. The glass was set upon a
table facing the open window. Upon entering the room the moths could not fail
to see the prisoner, as she stood directly in the way. The tray, containing a
layer of sand, on which the female had passed the preceding day and night,
covered with a wire-gauze dish-cover, was in my way. Without premeditation I
placed it at the other end of the room on the floor, in a corner where there
was little light. It was a dozen yards away from the window.

The result of these preparations entirely upset my preconceived ideas.
None of the arrivals stopped at the bell-glass, where the female was plainly to
be seen, the light falling full upon her prison. Not a glance, not an inquiry.
They all flew to the further end of the room, into the dark corner where I had
placed the tray and the empty dish-cover.

They alighted on the wire dome, explored it persistently, beating their
wings and jostling one another. All the afternoon, until sunset, the moths
danced about the empty cage the same saraband that the actual presence of the
female had previously evoked. Finally they departed: not all, for there were some
that would not go, held by some magical attractive force.

I find this description of what we now know to be the action
of pheromones to be delightful: who could not be fascinated by Fabre's account
of his experiment? Charles Darwin certainly valued his work in insect biology
and, in a letter to Fabre on 31st January 1880 [4], wrote:

I hope that you will permit me to
have the satisfaction of thanking you cordially for the lively pleasure which I
have derived from reading your book. Never have the wonderful habits of insects
been more vividly described, and it is almost as good to read about them as to
see them.

Further in the same letter comes this:

I am sorry that you are so
strongly opposed to the Descent theory; I have found the searching for the history
of each structure or instinct an excellent aid to observation; and wonderful
observer as you are, it would suggest new points to you. If I were to write on
the evolution of insects, I could make good use of some of the facts which you
give.

Fabre's Creationism came from his deep religious beliefs,
recorded by his biographer and namesake, Abbé Augustin Fabre [5]:

..in these times of overweening
atheism [the biography was published in 1921], when so many pseudo-scientists
are striving to persuade the ignorant that science is learning to dispense with
God, would it not be a most timely thing to reveal, to the eyes of all, a
scientist of undoubted genius who finds in science fresh arguments for belief,
and manifold occasions for affirming his faith in the God who has created and
rules the world?

Incorporating quotes from Jean-Henri Fabre, he continues:

.."Life is a horrible phantasmagoria.
But it leads us to a better future.".. ..This future the naturalist
[Fabre] liked to conceive in accordance with the images familiar in his mind,
as being a more complete understanding of the great book of which he had
deciphered only a few words, as a more perfect communion with the offices of
nature, in the incense of the perfumes "that are softly exhaled by the
carven flowers from their golden censers," amid the delightful symphonies
in which are mingled the voices of crickets and Cicadae, chaffinches and
siskins, skylarks and goldfinches, "those tiny choristers," all
singing and fluttering, "trilling their motets to the glory of Him who gave
them voice and wings on the fifth day of Genesis."..

.."And when one
evening," says his friend, "I remarked that these little miracles
clearly proved the existence of a divine Artificer: 'For me, I do not believe
in God', declared the scientist, repeating for the last time his famous and
paradoxical profession of faith: 'I do not believe
in God, because I see Him in all
things and everywhere.'"

It is fitting then that Fabre's book is in the Library (shown below) at
Oxburgh Hall, the home of the Roman Catholic Bedingfield family. Not only will
family members have thoroughly enjoyed Fabre's descriptions of his observations
and experiments in entomology, they would also empathise with the importance of
his faith, although they may have questioned Fabre's dogmatism. It is easy to sympathise
with Darwin's frustration at the conflict between reason and the unbending position
of those believing that The Holy Bible must be taken literally. It is a
conflict that continues today.

Friday, 4 March 2016

J.M.W.Turner is recognised for his exceptional use of light
and his love of storms, mists, rough seas and other threatening, or mysterious, natural events.
Meteorological effects fascinated him from boyhood, when he lay on his back to
look at the sky [1], not allowing any intrusion from his surroundings, and then
returning home to paint his impressions. Like many artists, Turner spent much of
his childhood drawing and painting what he saw and this continued
throughout his life. He was an enthusiastic traveller and produced many
sketchbooks filled with landscapes, but he also painted figures and buildings;
some real, some imaginary.

Turner's first formal training came as a teenager at the
Royal Academy Schools [1], when he developed an interest in architecture and
perspective, both features of his later paintings in the style of Claude
Lorrain. Further influences were Aelbert Cuyp and other painters of classical
landscapes, but there is no doubting Turner's originality in producing a
synthesis that was very much his own.

A less obvious influence is the work of
Titian. Some of Turner's sketches based on the Venetian artist (see below) are held in the
collections of Tate Britain and date from 1802, when Turner was 27 years old
and was making his first visit to the Louvre in Paris. The sketches feature
compositional and figure details, and during his visit to that great gallery,
Turner had "his eye taken most firmly by Titian" [1] and, especially,
his use of colour.

As Vasari wrote, Titian "...well deserved to be
considered the most perfect imitator of nature of our times as regards
colouring..." [2] Titian was among the first to paint with oils on canvas,
rather than board, and the palette available to him in Venice not only allowed
the portrayal of the splendid colours of clothing popular in Venice at the time,
but other effects. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the altarpiece
in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. This is what Hugh Honour and
John Fleming wrote about this work [3]:

Titian (Tiziano Vecelli,
c.1490-1576) was given his first chance to reveal the full force of his
artistic energy when he was asked to paint a vast picture of the Assumption of
the Virgin for the high altar of S Maria dei Frari [in 1516-1518]. Hitherto, Venetian
altarpieces had been intended to be seen to best advantage from the altar
steps; their figures were life-size or less and usually set within simulated
architecture conceived as an extension of the church. Titian's altarpiece, the
largest ever painted in Venice, with heroic-scale figures, was designed to
catch the eye of anyone entering the west door of the nave, nearly 100 yards
away.

It is not only the scale of the piece that captures our attention, but the luminosity of the colour enveloping the Virgin. Turner,
already impressed by the light quality in Venice, and the magical interaction
of land and sea, must have liked the
use of bright yellow-white and the ability of the painting to grab the attention from a
distance, something that was such a feature of Turner's work. He would have appreciated Titian's showmanship, a quality
that he himself enjoyed on Varnishing Days in the Royal Academy. There are many
stories about Turner on these occasions, adding dramatic flourishes to some paintings,
commenting on the work of other artists, and generally enjoying being one of
the centres of attention. We don't know how many of the stories are true [1].

There can be no questioning Turner's genius as an artist
and I am moved by many of his paintings and by his feeling for Nature. If I am
correct in suggesting that Titian's palette was an influence, we can thank that
Venetian Master, alongside all the other influences, for helping to make Turner so inspiring.

[1] James Hamilton (1997) Turner: A Life. London, Hodder and Stoughton.

[2] Giorgio Vasari (2005) Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (translated by Mrs Jonathan Foster).
New York, Dover Publication, Inc. [Original from 1550, with a revised Second
Edition in 1568]

[3] Hugh Honour and John Fleming (2005) A World History of Art (Seventh Edition). London, Laurence King.